End of school year gifts

I had trouble coming up with cheap end of school year/yay it's summer gifts for the students in Jack's class this year.  Not to mention that he had a male teacher this year and men are hard to shop for, LOL. I hit the Dollar Tree for the kids and ended up giving them an eraser, a bottle of bubbles, a little tub of cheap play dough, a mini frisbee disc and sidewalk chalk. the kids loved them, so I guess I did good.  Last year I got Jack's preschool class, a tub of snacks, I got the little buckets at the Target dollar spot marked down to .25 each because apparently they were for Christmas, but the colors were green, blue, orange and red, enough of the other colors to not make them look Christmas-like. Jack is getting older and the gifts are gonna be harder to think of, I am hoping to get some super cheap beach balls at the end of summer on sale for the kids for the next school year. The have a great summer tag on the kids bags was actually a free cupcake topper printable found on pinterest, I can't find the link for it now though.  For the male teacher I ended up doing a car washing kit, a gas card and a Walmart card.  For the teaching assistant I did a pedicure kit and a steak and shake gift card.

 Then there was Jack. They don't do kindergarten graduations here, they did last year but quit, so he was sad about that, so I got him a few cheap things for summer. I used the two free $10.00 Kohl's cash that I got in the mail for the Ironman transform car, the swimming pool torpedos and the water balloons, then I went to the Dollar Tree and got the silly string, glow light saber thingy and the wooden Jacob's ladder toy. I only spent $3.00 for all of this and it sure did make his day. He loved the Ironman toy of course but his favorite was the 1.00 ladder toy. LOL

 Here is a picture of me, I had just recently gotten my hair cut and here is the picture of it.

Pinterest???

So I found this recipe on pinterest and thought I would try it out. It claims to be low in calories and taste just like a Wendy's frosty. I was like right, ok I don't believe it, so I tried this recipe exactly how she had it. It was so thick my blender wouldn't even turn so I had to add another half a cup of Almond milk. I used half a banana and stevia to sweeten. If I made it again I wouldn't add the half a cup of Almond milk, I would just use like 3 or 4 ice cubes as opposed to 15.  It did taste really good though.  My total calorie count was 260.



The next pinterest link I tried was this Brazilian Butt Workout and let me tell you I probably won't be able to walk very well tomorrow, this workout is awesome and with swimsuit season right around the corner, what's not to love.  I also did crunches, 10 min of arms and walked on the treadmill for 30 min with this workout.  I am able to exercise more on the weekends.  Hope my reviews helped.

Catching up

I am playing catch up on blog posts since I was too busy to blog my crafty stuff last year.  I was in my best friends wedding in October and I threw her Bachelorette party.  I found this cute kool aid and vaseline lip gloss on pinterest, she even has a link to make your own printables for the containers. I used sticker paper to print the labels on and punched them out with my circle punch, but I had trouble finding the containers.  I finally found the containers at Walmart in the craft section near the beading and jewelry making stuff.  The funny thing is this stuff is great like vaseline cause that is what I used to put on my lips but has a tint to it and a flavor, so even though I made these for party favors, I think I'm going to make more for me so I don't ever have to buy chapstick again. LOl Here is a picture of the ones I made, the containers I found didn't have black lids. This stuff was easy to make, Jack helped me make them.

Penny Pincher

I have always been a penny pincher, and people always ask me what are some of the things I do to save money.  Well I have always been like this.  When I was little I would save up my piggy bank money for toys that I wanted.  When I was a teenager and got a car and a job I did the Dave Ramsey envelope saving strategy before I even new who he was.  I had my car insurance envelope, a car tax one, an oil change and gas one, clothing envelope, and dining out-fun envelope.  I would split my pay checks up this way. Now that I am an adult, I do easy things like open the windows and turn air or heat off when weather permits, if low on gas in car turn air/heat and radio off to save until you get to the gas station.  I also use tap water not bottled water because I drink a ton of water per day.  After Christmas I go the shopping a week or 2 after the holiday and shop for kids toys, I get male and female even though I only have a son. I spent $50.00 bucks this past January and got like 20 presents. I store them in a storage tote all year and whenever Jack gets invited to a birthday party, also for valentines and easter stuff I have instant presents.  My boss takes 6 weeks off a yr and I don't get paid when we are off (I get my 2 weeks paid vacation per yr, but not 6), so this comes in handy around those times.  I also look up in the local paper or online for free activities for kids in the town where I live. I take Jack to as many of those as possible, as long as he has been good, and I almost always will take picnic food there to avoid food costs.  I take my lunch to work everyday, most days anyway, sometimes I eat out but it's like once every other month or so.  I get cheap haircuts at great clips and I use coupons (my hair is so thin, can't do much with it anyway), my hubby and his dad cut Jack's hair.  I make crockpot meals in the summer to prevent the house from getting hot with the oven.  For summer time boredom never underestimate libraries, parks, feeding ducks, sidewalk chalk, kites, bubbles and cold smoothies on a hot day. Don't eat out as much, find free events for the kids, keep a storage tote of gifts for children and I keep stocking stuffers too. I also buy stuff up when they go on sale for future use. In the fall time you can get beach balls for .25 cents a piece and I have found bubbles for .10 cents a piece too. I always get 25 of each item if I can for end of school gifts for all the kids in my sons class.  Same for ornaments or Christmas decorations when they go on sale I use for the next yr for teacher gifts as well.  For clothes I love yard sales, consignment sales, Goodwill, Walmart and store sales.  It's not like I can't afford to buy clothes at department stores, but I refuse to pay 30 bucks for a pair of jeans my kid is only going to wear for 6 mo and probably stain up so bad you can't sell them.  I know a lot of this might sound extreme to some people but but doing all this allows me to pay extra principle on the mortgage every month (to hopefully pay it off sooner), and we were able to go on 3 vacations last year.  Don't know if this will help anybody or not, but I hope it does.

Garage workout

I had a funny conversation with my Mom a few weeks ago. We were chatting on facebook and I told her I had to get off the computer and go do my garage workout, which is where I have to go if Jack and Jason are asleep cause then I can jump and they won't hear me.  It was 10:00 at night and I caught the workout bug.  She asked me what I could possibly do in the garage for a workout, and here is my response, all I had was 10 pound free weights, a yoga mat and a chair, you really don't need fancy equipment, and this workout took me about an hour and 20 minutes.  When I blast dance music in my ears sometimes I have to force myself to end the workout cause I'm just feeling the music. This is my response to my Mom: "You wanted to know what I do in the garage, well I ended up going in the storage room - too hot in garage. Blast dance music on ipod: do 20 minutes of cardio: cheesy 80's dancing, running in place, kickboxing, criss cross kicks, jumping jacks, kick butt kicks, kick forward/jump run, kick backs, pretend jump rope, mountain climbers, tire jumps, sumo wrestler, burpies, suicide drills, football runs. That is just the cardio then I do 10 different things with free weights, I do tri-cep dips with a chair, lunges, squats, side kicks, leg lifts, plie kicks, 10 different ab exercises , different leg exercises on my knees, then a little more cardio then my cool down. What I did tonight burned 760 calories.

HELP, teacher gift ideas for a man

So for the past three years Jack has had female, teachers, teaching assistants and speech therapist. Now he has a male Kindergarten teacher, and I am so used to coming up with cute ideas for the woman.  I have a few that could work for both male and female.  The smores gift basket, the movie gift basket, the coffee set. but I am kind of at a loss for anything else. I like to give lots of gifts throughout the year, cause lets face it they have my child for about 37 hours a week they deserve presents.  His new teacher drives over an hour every day to get to his job.  I always like to give a pretty big gift at Christmas time. Here is my idea tell me what you think:
A personalized tote box or small storage bin with kind of like a car emergency kit in it
Here are things I would give him if you think this is a good idea, otherwise I am at a loss
Tide to go pen - for spilling things on clothes - we have all spilled coffee on the way to work, right
lint roller
de-icer
fix-a-flat
gas card
travel coffee mug
flash light or maybe a flash light key chain
snacks (cause his only meal all day is cafeteria food)
ice scraper

I can't think of anything else, ideas Please, need feedback

I wants

So, I don't have a pinterest account, but I like to go on there and look at stuff and get ideas.  I have a few things that I think are adorable and only know too crafty people in my life, so Mom and Cass if you see this post, these items are adorable and I love them. The first is these cute little booty socks. Love them, looks so cozy. 

This pumpkin wreath is super cute, I love it.  Mom I hope you read this, cause this would make a great gift, you know I love your hand made gifts.  

This little snowman is adorable and would go great with my Snowman Christmas decorations.

I love this ring, I know this can't be made, but this is my wish list so it is on here. LOL

Also, I love this outfit, especially the necklace and purse.